We hypothesize that among critically ill, impairments in phonation correlate significantly to impairments in deglutition. Since in current practice patient's risk for aspiration is judged based on swallowing ability, strong correlation between impairments in speech and swallow mechanisms may allow prognostication based on phonation assessment alone. As the phonetic evaluation is simple, bedside test, it may result in earlier identification of the patient at risk for aspiration and obviate need for additional, invasive and expensive tests, and additional staff utilization for patient transport, testing and interpretation.